Attorney General Knudsen asks Montana Supreme Court to dismiss Gallatin County Attorney case

HELENA – In his summary response filed today, Attorney General Austin Knudsen asked the Montana Supreme Court to dismiss Gallatin County Attorney Audrey Cromwell’s petition requesting the AG’s supervisory control be terminated. Attorney General Knudsen invoked supervisory control on April 30 when Cromwell refused to rescind her unlawful policy refusing to recognize Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as a “criminal justice agency” and share confidential criminal justice information with them.

As outlined in the response, Cromwell’s request for the Supreme Court to take up the case, Cromwell v. Knudsen, should be denied because she is asking the court to rule on a political issue – not a legal question. Additionally, the case does not belong at the Montana Supreme Court as no “urgency or emergency factors exist making litigation in the trial courts and the normal appeal process inadequate.” Rather, if any justifiable claims exist, the case should be in district court. Cromwell is also wrong on the merits since ICE is a criminal justice agency as defined by Montana law.

When taking supervisory control over Cromwell’s office, Attorney General Knudsen directed her to share confidential criminal justice information with ICE for all lawful purposes, including civil administration immigration matters and produce all documents, records, and communications related to the matter. She refused and filed a case. However, a county attorney cannot refuse to comply with an Attorney General’s order instituting supervisory authority.

“Entertaining this petition would chart a path for any county attorney to run to this Court to resolve any interpretive or policy disagreement she had with the Attorney General. A decision on the merits would nullify the Legislature’s grant of comprehensive supervisory authority,” Attorney General Knudsen wrote.

The legislature granted the Attorney General authority “to exercise supervisory powers over county attorneys in all matters pertaining to the duties of their offices and from time to time require of them reports as to the condition of public business entrusted to their charge.” And specified that“[t]he supervisory powers granted to the attorney general by this subsection include the power to order and direct county attorneys in all matters pertaining to the duties of their office.”

“Cromwell is an outlier. No other county has distorted the plain meaning of Montana’s Criminal Justice Information Act to create a de facto sanctuary jurisdiction that is uniquely hostile to ICE’s important operations. This manufactured conflict has thus created no “confusion far beyond Gallatin County,” Attorney General Knudsen wrote. “And because the plain meaning of Montana law is clear and no one but Cromwell has refused to read and interpret the law as written, other county attorneys are not under ‘threat of losing control over their elected offices.’”